"To restore and conserve fish, wildlife and habitat throughout the state and teach others to do the same."

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Friday, August 24, 2012

Citizen Science! Fun For The Whole Family

This article is from our September-October issue of our newsletter "The Wildlife Volunteer".

The
Michigan Wildlife Conservancy (MWC) recently confirmed the presence of a cougar
in Southern Marquette County.The cougar
was photographed by a cased and padlocked trail camera on private property on
June 1, 2012.The property owners do not
wish to be publicly identified, but are members of the MWC.

Dr.
Patrick Rusz, Director of Wildlife Programs for the Conservancy, and Michael
Zuidema, a retired DNR forester,
verified the trail camera’s location on a well-worn wildlife trail atop a
wooded ridge.The camera has also
photographed wolves, coyotes, fishers and numerous other species at the same
site over a four-year period.In late
June, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources also confirmed the
authenticity of the cougar photo.

The
MWC publicized this photograph because it may be the best, clearest photograph
of a wild Michigan cougar ever taken.It
is also unusually interesting because Mr. Zuidema has recorded over 20 credible
cougar sightings in the same vicinity since the 1970s.These include several sightings within a few
miles of the trail camera location.

Dr.
Rusz stated that “the long history of sighting reports in the area indicates
the cougar photographed on June 1 may be part of a resident population rather
than a wandering cat from a western state.”Dr. Rusz has studied cougars for the Conservancy for 14 years and is
co-author of a peer-reviewed study that confirmed cougars in both peninsulas of
Michigan by analyses of DNA in
droppings.He has also compiled a long
list of additional physical evidence dating back to 1966, and notes that
Michigan State College zoologist Richard Manville documented several cougar sightings
or incidents when he inventoried the fauna of Marquette County’s Huron Mountains
from 1939 to 1942.

The
large volume of recent Michigan evidence includes 17 MDNR
confirmations since the agency formed a cougar team of specially trained
biologists in 2008.These confirmations
include one last May when a cougar was photographed with a hand-held camera
near Skanee in Baraga County.That
photograph was taken about 50 miles north of the Marquette County trail camera
location.

“The
MDNR cougar team should now look at the very good evidence of a remnant cougar
population collected before 2008,” said Bill Taylor, President of the
Conservancy.“They could still easily
verify cougar photos taken in the 1990’s in Alcona and Oscoda Counties in the
Lower Peninsula and some others.The
vegetation and other landmarks needed to confirm the photos are still there.”

Citizen
science is a phrase often used to describe the active participation of our
citizens in the collection of information about wildlife.Citizen-science projects can involve observing,
censusing or documenting certain species, or the actual collection of specimens
for study.As state and federal wildlife
budgets become more strained the need for “citizen science” collected
information will become a necessity.

On
the next page is an excellent example of citizen science in action.Here an outdoor oriented couple, and MWC
members, with land in Southern Marquette County decided to document the
wildlife on their property.Using
stationary trail cameras they have photographed more than a dozen animal
species, some of Michigan’s rarest, in less than four years.

Please
enjoy this amazing citizen science project, and ask yourself if you too could
help us by photo-documenting Michigan’s wildlife where you live or recreate.